Seattle with their first ever SB appearance, Finally Holmgren gets his chance with this team or our Steelers getting that ring for Jerome, bringing that elusive one for the thumb and the lombari trophy back to Pittsburgh and for the Rooneys and coach cowher ?

Both teams are gonna want it in the worst way, but with how far we've come and Jerome looking to retire now more than ever after this season, I give the edge to us.

I pick the Steelers, reason being that not only the Bettis being back at home, but I think Cowher feels that he has unfinished buisness when it comes to the SB.....I think because of 95 and how it ended he will be full steam ahead and he will leave everything on the field!

The vets on this team and Cowher have the right mind set early on here before the big game.
ou rarely hear the chant, "We're No. 2 ... We're No. 2."

And nobody's ever written a song titled, "We are the Runners-up," as a follow-up to Queen's "We are the Champions."

Unfortunately, close doesn't count in life or in Super Bowls.

That's why the Steelers would like to avoid the fate of past Super Bowl second-fiddles -- you probably forgot about 2005 runner-up Philadelphia already -- and turn this great season into a Super one.

They get the chance 12 days from now, when they face the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL in Detroit.

"It's a great moment, a great moment," Steelers president Art Rooney II said, shortly after his team mauled the Denver Broncos, 34-17, in the AFC title game Sunday at Invesco Field. "But the big thing is, we have one more to go. We're not done yet. Everybody's talking about today, but we have to win the next game."

Rooney II said before the season that it's "about time" the Steelers bring another Super Bowl back to Pittsburgh. It has been 26 years since the franchise won its fourth Lombardi Trophy after the '79 season and Rooney II acknowledged that he was getting antsy.

He did not back down from that stance Sunday in discussing the team's sixth Super Bowl appearance and what it means to running back Jerome Bettis, who returned for his 13th season for a chance to play his final game in his hometown of Detroit.

"It's one of those storybook endings that you don't want to think about because it's almost too good to be true," Rooney II said. "But it will only be that good if we go together and win it with him. So that's what we have to go do."

Translation: The Big Boss wants this one badly.

It's incumbent upon the Steelers, who are 3 1/2-point favorites against the Seahawks, to quickly turn their attention to defeating a Seahawks team that features the NFL's leading rusher in Shaun Alexander, an efficient passer in Matt Hasselbeck and a bend-don't-break defense that helped Seattle to a 13-3 regular-season record and the No. 1 seed in the NFC.

The Seahawks have won 13 of their past 14 games, with the only blemish a 23-17 loss at Green Bay on Jan. 1.

"The City of Pittsburgh hasn't won a Super Bowl since the '70s, we know that," nose tackle Casey Hampton said. "It's been a long time. And coach (Bill) Cowher made it to the AFC Championship game six times, but he's only been to the Super Bowl once before. We can't stop now. We have a goal that we want to win one for coach Cowher and the Rooneys and the city. Because it's been way too long."

Veteran players such as cornerback Deshea Townsend and center Jeff Hartings will play key roles in keeping the team focused, re-enforcing to their teammates that coming up short in the big game pales to winning it all.

Neither of the two players has been to the Super Bowl, but they were a combined 0-4 in AFC finals before Sunday's victory in Denver.

"We have one game left, man," Townsend said. "And if you're not focused for that one -- The Big One -- there's something wrong with you. We have a lot of guys who this is very new to, mostly all of us. But we have this one big game left. Everything else can wait. Everything else we're thinking about is on the backburner. That's the mindset you have to take into this game."

The Steelers have been playing at such a high for such a long time -- seven consecutive wins, including three on the road in the playoffs -- that it was suggested that they might have reached their peak in the Mile High City, where they were nearly flawless.

"We haven't peaked yet, because we're still making mistakes. We still have things to clean up," free safety Chris Hope said. "The thing about this team is everybody wants to keep on getting better. Nobody around here thinks they're playing their best football. We don't have egos like that. We're going to get back to practicing hard and go about the business of taking this next one like we've done the whole way: One game at a time."

Added Hartings, "It's all about how we practice. If you look at the past seven weeks, every phase of our team has practiced hard. There's no reason to think that we won't play well in the Super Bowl if we continue to follow that formula."

Wideout Cedrick Wilson might have said best.

"This," he said of the AFC Championship win, "is just a stepping stone."

As long as they both leave it on the field and play the game of their lives that is the most important things. If either team walks away on the losing end knowing they could have done more, thats the worst feeling you can have.

Both are young teams and will be competitive for years to come.. the driving force all year has been to get Jerome his ring and get Cowher his first SB win.